It can probably be assumed that the family didn't have those devices because the technology hadn't been invented yet. However, this assumption is not established nor disproved by episode information.

From early in his youth, Fox wanted a peg leg. He gave the idea a lot of thought and eventually came to the belief that, if he had a peg leg or hooks for hands, other people might not expect him to achieve anything more than to simply keep on living, braving facing life with his disability. Fox never grew out of his boyhood desire for a peg leg and, in 1996, he still suspected it would have its advantages. (TXF: "Quagmire")

Young Fox Mulder had several nightmares from which he awakened in the middle of the night, thinking he was the only person left in the world. The loud crunching from his father eating sunflower seeds in the family's study reassured Fox that he was not alone. (TXF: "Aubrey")

One day when he was climbing a tree, Fox had an up-close encounter with a praying mantis. Although he initially thought the mantis was a leaf, he screamed when he realized the insect's true nature. He later remembered that his scream wasn't a "girlie" one, but of a person being "confronted by some before unknown monster that had no right existing on the same planet [he] inhabited." He was repulsed by the mantis and has hated insects ever since. (TXF: "War of the Coprophages")

Once in his youth, Fox dressed up as the fictional character Spock and his father recorded a home movie of him playing with his sister, Samantha. Fox made silly faces at the camera and was irritated when his fake ear fell off. (TXF: "Dreamland II")

He and Samantha repeatedly played all-day pick-up games of baseball out on the vineyard, rode their bikes to the beach and ate bologna sandwiches. The only regular responsibility that they had was getting home in time for dinner. (TXF: "Home")

Young Fox and Samantha pictured together.

Fox once posed, half-naked, for a photograph with his sister, while she wore a swimming costume. (TXF: "Conduit")

Fox and his sister are seen playing Stratego before Samantha's abduction in the episodes "Little Green Men" and "Paper Hearts", but those sequences may not be historically accurate. When Samantha is supposedly returned in the episode "Colony," she asks Mulder if it's too late for a game of Stratego, supporting the theory that they used to play it as children.

Once, his best friend's house burnt down and he spent the night in the wreckage to guard it from looters. For several years after the incident, Fox had nightmares about being trapped in a burning building. In 1993, he still had an extreme hate of fire. (TXF: "Fire")

Mulder's phobia of fire, established in the episode "Fire", was never referred to again. Some fans speculate that Mulder may have overcome his phobia in the establishing episode, yet others believe that Mulder's fear remains but was just never dealt with.

2790 Vine Street was once the address of The X-Files production office in Vancouver.

By an unknown force that Fox later came to believe was alien, Samantha was taken from the house without explanation. (TXF: "Colony") As Fox's father, Bill Mulder, worked at high level in government, an unusually large search operation was conducted and even the FBI's Treasury Department became involved, but nothing was found. (TXF: "Closure") The incident tore the Mulder family apart as there were no facts or evidence to offer any hope and no one would talk about it. (TXF: "Pilot")

As a child, Mulder had a ritual of closing his eyes before walking into his room as he believed that one day when he opened them, his sister would be there, lying in bed like nothing had ever happened. He later initiated an X-file concerning his sister's unexplained disappearance, with the case number X-40253. (TXF: "Conduit") According to Mulder, his belief that aliens had abducted his sister "sustained [him], fueling a quest for truths that were elusive as the memory itself". (TXF: "Colony")

Education and Early FBI Career

Oxford

The ten years between his sister's abduction and his enrollment at Oxford University are largely unaccounted for. Mulder's credentials are also unspecific about precisely which program he participated in while at Oxford.

During his time at Oxford University, Mulder watched a documentary about an insane asylum. In one section of the program, a patient named Creighton Jones claimed to have been abducted by "fire demons." The documentary gave Mulder nightmares. (TXF: "Our Town")

Mulder was probably affected by the "fire demon" documentary due to his fear of fire and because he imagined what might have happened to Samantha if she had been abducted the same way as Creighton Jones claimed to have been.

The script of "Beyond the Sea" characterizes Mulder's profile on Boggs as having been written for the Violent Crimes Bureau.

In "Pilot", Mulder is described as having written a monograph on serial killers and the occult that helped catch a murderer in 1988. Although there is insufficient evidence to establish exactly when Mulder wrote this monograph (prior to 1988), it is likely he wrote it while studying at Oxford, as there is no evidence to suggest he participated in such an intense academic period before the murderer's capture and, in the episode, Mulder's time at Oxford is mentioned directly before and in the same sentence as the description of him having written the monograph. Similarly, Mulder mentions, in "Little Green Men", that he took music appreciation with ProfessorGanz, where he learned that the famous composer Johann Sebastian Bach had a genius for polyphony. Like the writing of his monograph, there is not adequate evidence to determine whether Mulder studied music appreciation at college.

Mulder's Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Oxford.

Despite his negative reaction to the fire demons video, Mulder graduated from Oxford University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. (TXF: "Dreamland II")

In 1988, the FBI successfully captured murderer Monty Props with help from a monograph on serial killers and the occult that Mulder had previously written. (TXF: "Pilot")

In the same year, Mulder was studying at the Investigative Support Unit, based in Quantico and run by William Patterson, the leading authority on behavioural science, when Mulder quit the unit. As Patterson's student, Mulder had learned that to know an artist, you must first look at his art - a lesson he interpreted as meaning that if you want to catch a monster, you have to become one yourself. (TXF: "Grotesque")

It is unclear when Mulder began his assignment to the ISU, but it may explain the missing two years between his next assignment and his graduation from the FBI Academy that are otherwise unaccounted for.

Also in 1988, Mulder was assigned to the FBI's Violent Crimes Section. (TXF: "Unusual Suspects") There, he saw "the worst of humanity" and wondered how the violent suspects and killers he encountered had become evil. Although Mulder realized that there were psychological explanations, that the men were victims of their parents or their environments, the scientific explanations never truly satisfied him and he began to think of evil as a contagious disease that could spread "from man to man or age to age." (TXF: "Empedocles") During this period, Mulder was also witness to several graves that had been unearthed. (TXF: "Irresistible") His partner was Jerry Lamana, and his supervisor was ASACReggie Purdue. (TXF: "Ghost in the Machine", "Young at Heart")

First FBI Case

Mulder in 1989.

Mulder's first case at the FBI as a field agent was in 1989. He investigated a series of armed robberies in Washington, D.C. in which the thief, a criminal named John Barnett, had killed seven people. While working on the case, Mulder was a member of a large task force. He had an unlikely suspicion that Barnett had an inside connection to an employee at the armored car company, who was providing the criminal with information about large shipments of cash. Barnett started sending taunting notes to Mulder as he continued working on the case.

Eventually, the task force had a customs warehouse at an airport staked-out in the hope of capturing Barnett's informer. However, Barnett was actually inside the vehicle himself when it arrived. Sensing that something was wrong, Barnett took the driver of the vehicle - his own accomplice - hostage. The FBI task force surrounded the criminal, ordering him to surrender his hostage and his weapon. Mulder took up a position directly behind Barnett with a clear shot at the criminal, but obeyed FBI regulations that prohibit agents from unnecessarily endangering the life of a hostage. Mulder suspected that Barnett would surrender as he had no means of escape, but the killer shot his hostage at point-blank range and then fired his gun at Agent Steve Wallenberg's face. Although Mulder shot Barnett twice, in the shoulder and hand, he was convinced that he could have saved Agent Wallenberg's life and never forgave himself for the deaths.

Mulder later attended Barnett's trial and presented a testimony in court. He recalled the events of the shoot-out and angrily insulted Barnett while the judge ordered him to step down from the witness stand. After Mulder eventually complied with the instruction, Barnett threatened him, "I'll get you." (TXF: "Young at Heart")

The Gunmen Incident

In May 1989, Mulder was assigned to conduct a search for Susanne Modeski, who was suspected of murdering four employees at the Army Advanced Weapons Facility at Whitestone, New Mexico. When Mulder found Modeski in a warehouse at 204 Fells Point Road, she was being helped by a group of three unarmed men. Mulder consequently attempted to arrest all four individuals, but was prevented from doing so by two armed men who told Modeski to accompany them, refused to identify themselves to Mulder and eventually opened fire on him. Mulder attempted to hide behind a stack of boxes, but was unaware they contained an ergotamine-histomine gas that could cause anxiety and paranoia in small doses.

The shots from his attackers' weapons released the gas into the air and Mulder was consequently affected, coughing and groaning as his body writhed around on the ground. As his attackers were about to kill him, Susanne Modeski shot the men with a gun of her own before fleeing the scene in Mulder's car. The warehouse was soon sanitized by a group of men led by an individual who, years later, Mulder came to know as X. In his drugged state, Mulder thought the group were actually aliens, having seen, earlier in his search for Modeski, a product display where a recorded voice had repeatedly announced, "They're here. Alien invaders are among us. Detect their presence with high-tech modern products."

Mulder with the Lone Gunmen in 1989.

Nearly immediately after the sanitizing group left the warehouse, a SWAT team found Mulder under a large piece of cardboard that was leaning against a crate. He was nonresponsive to questions and continually repeated the words, "They're here." Mulder had recovered by the next morning but discovered that, although Susanne Modeski was still missing, she was no longer wanted by the FBI and the case had suddenly closed. (TXF: "Unusual Suspects") Left with lingering ideas that he characterized as "weird" and able to remember only a little of the night before, Mulder began to consult Modeski's three former accomplices, who he ultimately came to know as "the Lone Gunmen." (TXF: "Unusual Suspects", "First Person Shooter")

The BSU and "Paper Hearts"

The exact dates of Mulder's assignment to the BSU are unknown, although "Travelers" establishes that he was assigned to the unit in November 1990. The "three years" that he mentions in "Tooms" may have been a rough estimate, but he did mention that duration in a court of law.

By 1990, the bodies of ten young girls had been found scattered across the eastern seaboard, the earliest discovered in 1979. The killer had abducted each of his victims from their homes and had a routine of taking cloth heart trophies from each victim, behavior that influenced ViCAP to name the case "paper hearts." Mulder's ASAC, Reggie Purdue, brought him onto the case, believing that Mulder would be able to get inside the killer's head. He concluded that the murderer was probably a salesman, most likely someone who seemed ordinary, could gain people's confidence and traveled around a lot.

The case proved difficult and the killer was extremely hard to catch. Ultimately, however, Mulder's profile was instrumental in the capture of the killer, a vacuum cleaner salesman named John Lee Roche. By the time he was caught, a total of thirteen victims had been found, ranging from eight to ten years of age. Roche admitted he had killed precisely thirteen girls and a polygraph test established that he was telling the truth. However, the cloth hearts that Roche had taken from his victims were never found, a fact that irritated Mulder for the next six years. He always wanted to find the hearts and count them to see if they really added up to thirteen. (TXF: "Paper Hearts")

Mulder's address - Apartment 42, 2630 Hegal Place, Alexandria, Virginia - was first given in "Small Potatoes" and appeared again near the start of "Dreamland II", in an X-file labeled X-71009. "Travelers" establishes that he was living there in 1990. Apartment 42 is a reference to "the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything," from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels by Douglas Adams.

Work on the X-Files

Finding the X-Files

Mulder's success at applying behavioural models to criminal cases allowed him a certain freedom to pursue his own interests and he found the X-files in 1990. (TXF: "Pilot", "Travelers")

The script of "Conduit" states that the X-file initiated by Mulder that was concerned with his sister's abduction was opened on January 14, 1989. The CD-ROM The X-Files: Unauthorized Access reveals that paperwork showing this date was created for filming of the episode, but the date cannot be seen clearly in the final version of the episode.

Initially, the files seemed to him like "a garbage dump for UFO sightings, alien abduction reports, the kind of stuff that most people laugh at as being ridiculous." Mulder, however, was fascinated by the files and read hundreds of them, including all the cases he was allowed access to. He read everything he could about paranormal phenomena and the occult. (TXF: "Pilot")

He found many X-files that recorded accounts of alien abductees who had suffered intense radiation burns. (TXF: "Fallen Angel") He also discovered file X-649176 and the first X-file, initiated by J. Edgar Hoover in 1946. Both files contained reports of men who had been able to physically transform into wild animals. (TXF: "Shapes") Another file Mulder saw dated back to 1952 and concerned something that had killed livestock and terrorized people living in Point Pleasant, West Virginia for over a year. After witnesses had described seeing primitive-looking men with red piercing eyes, the culprits had become known as "moth men." (TXF: "Detour")

Although the X-files constituted a project outside the Bureau mainstream, Mulder pursued the files because witnessing his sister's abduction continued to haunt him. (TXF: "Pilot", "The Truth") He was assigned to the cases in 1990. (TXF: "Kill Switch")

One of the first X-files Mulder investigated himself involved a killer named Edward Skur. In November 1990, Mulder met Arthur Dales, a former Special Agent with the FBI who, in 1952, had opened an X-file on Skur labeled X-525652. Dales revealed William Mulder's involvement in experiments that had been conducted involving xenotransplantation. (TXF: "Travelers")

After joining the FBI in 1991, Diana Fowley, an FBI agent with a background in para-science and Mulder's girlfriend since his graduation from the FBI Academy, helped him investigate a few of the X-files. While working on the cases, Mulder and Fowley spent some time in psychiatric hospitals where they suspected that some patients serving criminal sentences had been misdiagnosed. Additionally, a few patients showed impressively accurate clairvoyant and telepathic abilities. Mulder learned that Fowley had run brain scans and psych evaluations. After the Berlin Wall was dismantled, Fowley accepted a counter-terrorism legate assignment in Berlin, Europe, simultaneously ending her tenure on the X-files and her relationship with Mulder. (TXF: "The End")

It is unclear how many and which psychiatric patients Mulder and Fowley felt had been misdiagnosed, whether those patients also showed telepathic abilities and, if so, how many. It is uncertain whether Mulder witnessed the patients exhibit telepathic abilities, only that Diana Fowley did so. It is also unclear if Mulder, having graduated from the FBI Academy before Fowley, showed her how to run brain scans and psych evaluations or if she learned how to conduct those procedures herself; logically, she may have either learned how to perform such tasks prior to investigating the relevant case, which might or might not have involved the psychiatric patients, or during the case. Historically, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall ended in November 1991 but this date has never been established in The X-Files' lore, only that "the Wall came down."

The origins of the "I Want to Believe" poster are revealed in "Chinga", in which Mulder reveals that he got it "about five years ago." The episode is set in early 1998 but the poster is seen as early as "Pilot", set in early 1992, meaning that he must have obtained the poster six years before. This does not clash with the "about five years ago" statement Mulder makes in "Chinga" because the date he provides is only approximate.

Division ChiefScott Blevins, Mulder's superior, believed he had developed a consuming devotion to the X-files. (TXF: "Pilot") As a result, Blevins assigned Special AgentDana Scully, a medical doctor with a background in hard science, to assist Mulder on the X-files and provide an analytical perspective on the cases, including field reports and observations on the validity of their work. (TXF: "Pilot", "Gethsemane") When Mulder first met Scully, he told her that his memories of the abduction of his sister had marked him so deeply that nothing else mattered. (TXF: "Pilot", "The Red and the Black")

On their first assignment together, Mulder and his new FBI partner investigated mysterious deaths of high school students in Oregon. Mulder was thrilled to experience several phenomena commonly associated with alien abductions, such as time loss and witnessing an extremely bright light gradually engulf an area he was in. (TXF:"Pilot") Mulder continued to have many strange experiences during his tenure on the X-files. (The X-Files)

In 1994, Mulder somehow realized that the FBI intended to shut down the X-files and had a hunch that something was about to change for himself and Scully. (TXF: "Tooms") Shortly thereafter, he was called into FBI Headquarters and was told by Assistant DirectorWalter Skinner, who had replaced Section Chief Blevins as the agents' superior, that he and Scully would no longer be investigating the X-files and would instead be assigned to other sections of the FBI. Mulder relayed the news to Scully and vowed that he wouldn't give up. (TXF: "The Erlenmeyer Flask")

After the X-Files Closed

Mulder was tasked with routine general assignment duties following the X-files' closure, but had several random encounters with the paranormal, including an experience of a possible alien visitation and the discovery of a being that he initially believed to be a "giant bloodsucking worm." (TXF: "Little Green Men", "The Host") Mulder considered leaving the FBI at this point but, soon after, he was temporarily reassigned to the FBI's Behavioural Science Unit, where he returned to his previous assignment as a behavioural profiler. (TXF: "The Host", "Blood") Shortly following this reassignment, Mulder was partnered with Special Agent Alex Krycek and worked on two cases with him. (TXF: "Sleepless", "Ascension")

Continuation of the X-Files

After discovering evidence that Krycek had been complicit in the recent abduction of Agent Scully, the X-files were reopened and Mulder alone was reassigned to investigate the cases. (TXF: "Sleepless", "Ascension") Mulder later recalled that he had "worked [his] ass off to get the files reopened." (TXF: "Never Again") Krycek did not return to working for the FBI but Mulder later had many encounters with him. (TXF: "Ascension", et al.) As Scully was found shortly after Mulder investigated a single case alone, he subsequently continued to investigate the X-files with her. (TXF: "One Breath", "3", "Firewalker")

Mulder remained on the X-files with Scully for the next four years but fears over the continuation of the files were voiced in 1998 by two of their associates in the FBI, after Mulder suggested that a shooter, whose target had been Gibson Praise, be given immunity from prosecution in exchange for information about Praise. Mulder nevertheless interviewed the shooter, who was killed soon after.

Mulder was soon informed of talks that were being held on the issue of reassignment for himself and Scully that included instructions from the Justice Department to close down the X-files. Although Mulder believed that the situation he and Scully now found themselves in had all been planned without his knowledge, Scully told him that it might no longer matter what he believed as the forces against them seemed to have won.

Later, Mulder received news of a fire within his basement office. He and Scully returned to the FBI's Headquarters, where they saw that the office containing the X-files had been severely incinerated in the fire. All information pertaining to the cases had apparently been destroyed and lost forever. (TXF: "The End")

Aftermath

Mulder attempting to restore an incinerated X-file.

Ironically, Mulder continued to learn more about the aliens and plans for their upcoming colonization of the Earth after the destruction of the X-files. With Scully, he was initially assigned to investigate a bomb threat under the supervision of SAC Darius Michaud but Mulder and his FBI partner found that the bomb was linked to plans for the colonization after he discovered the bomb and it exploded, killing Michaud. (The X-Files Movie) The X-files were re-opened shortly thereafter, but with two of Mulder's associates within the FBI assigned to investigate the files, rather than himself and Scully. (The X-Files Movie, TXF: "The Beginning") Mulder simultaneously made an attempt to technologically restore the incinerated remains of burnt X-files, an effort he momentarily continued after he and Scully were placed under the supervision of stern Assistant Director Alvin Kersh. (TXF: "The Beginning")

Together with Scully, Mulder was subsequently assigned to investigate possible cases of domestic terrorism. Mulder found these routine checks extremely boring and suspected that their superiors meant to humiliate Scully and himself by assigning them such tedious work. (TXF: "Drive") He therefore chose to involve himself in several cases outside those he had been assigned to, including a high-speed police chase that had made news headlines and his search for the SS Queen Anne - a ship that had reportedly gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle in 1939. (TXF: "Drive", "Triangle")

In early 1999, Mulder remotely provided information on a case that Scully investigated while she was temporarily partnered with Agent Peyton Ritter. Shortly before this case, Mulder had revealed to Scully that he was not ready to quit the FBI as doing so would "make way too many people way too happy." (TXF: "Tithonus") Soon after, he found that Assistant Director Skinner had been assaulted so, with Scully's assistance, he tried to determine the attacker's identity but the agents were inhibited from continuing their investigation by Skinner himself, who reminded them that they were to perform their duties "as directed by AD Kersh and only AD Kersh". (TXF: "S.R. 819")

Subsequently, Mulder again learned more about the aliens and their human conspirators, known as the Syndicate. Both he and Scully were indefinitely suspended by the FBI, though, when Agent Jeffrey Spender, one of the agents assigned to the X-files who was unwittingly working for the Syndicate, found that Mulder and Scully had been using the X-files office to aid in their inquiries. (TXF: "Two Fathers")

Return to the X-Files

After virtually all members of the Syndicate were killed by a rebel group of aliens, Mulder was reassigned to the X-files with Scully due to a strong recommendation to AD Kersh by Agent Spender, who had realized he had been mistaken in his allegiance. (TXF: "One Son")

Mulder was once again assigned to operate under Assistant Director Skinner's guidance, as was Scully. (TXF: "Arcadia") The agents returned to the X-files office and, even though Mulder's "I Want to Believe" poster had burned in the fire, he managed to obtain a new one from one of his on-line correspondents, Karin Berquist, after she died while involved in a case he was investigating. (TXF: "Alpha")

It was later but during the same stint on the X-files that Mulder finally learned the truth of his sister's fate. (TXF: "Closure")

Abduction and Recovery

In 2000, Mulder disregarded the advice of an FBI auditor, specifically to reduce the resources he used on investigating the X-files, by choosing to work with Scully on a case involving recent disappearances of several multiple abductees from the Oregon town where the agents had investigated their first case together. It was only after he returned to Washington, D.C. with Scully that Mulder and his associates learned of a downed UFO hidden in the Oregon woods where the abductees had been taken by aliens intent on covering up evidence of the abductions. Characteristically curious, Mulder headed to the location of the crashed spacecraft with AD Skinner but was abducted himself, taken aboard the craft with the other abductees and at least six alien bounty hunters. (TXF: "Requiem", "Without")

Mulder's abduction.

Aboard the ship, Mulder was bound to a metallic apparatus and endured painful medical procedures, including the drilling of his teeth and the cracking of his chest. (TXF: "Within") In less than a week after his abduction, Mulder traveled aboard the craft to the Arizona desert, where the aliens made an unsuccessful attempt to abduct Gibson Praise. (TXF: "Within", "Without") The following year, the ship carrying Mulder visited Helena, Montana, where the aliens disposed of at least two of the abductees, seemingly either dead or barely alive and with injuries similar to those Mulder sustained aboard the craft. Mulder's body was abandoned outside a farm compound where abductees had been taken and healed of their wounds; he was found by FBI agents searching for him there. (TXF: "This is Not Happening") At the time his body was discovered, he seemed to have been dead for days.

Mulder was consequently buried in Raleigh, North Carolina, following a funeral held there in his honor. He was actually infected with an alien virus, however, that kept the body just alive enough to take it through a transformation into an alien. After Billy Miles - an abductee who had been taken aboard the same alien craft as Mulder - was found deceased and floating in the Atlantic Ocean but later regained consciousness, Mulder's grave was unearthed three days after his burial and he was hospitalized. Billy Miles' transformation into an alien super-soldier informed Mulder's treatment and he was soon nursed back to health, regaining consciousness without encountering the same development as Billy Miles. (TXF: "DeadAlive")

During Mulder's abduction, he is shown in flashbacks in the episodes "The Gift" and "Per Manum" but these are not directly related to his abduction. In the last scene of "The Gift", Doggett also has a momentary vision of Mulder while in the X-files office. Scully later has a similar vision in "This is Not Happening". Scenes of Mulder's abduction shown previously in the series appear in "Three Words", an episode set after his return.

Exclusion

Mulder back in the X-files office, against orders.

After Mulder returned home to his apartment, an application was submitted to the FBI for his reinstatement to the X-files but this was declined by Kersh, who had been promoted to Deputy Director in charge of the X-files shortly after Mulder had been abducted. (TXF: "Three Words", "Within") Mulder learned that Agent John Doggett had been assigned to the X-files with Scully, but she was pregnant and was soon to go on maternity leave. (TXF: "Three Words") Subsequently, Mulder returned to his former basement office and continued to place himself in danger by investigating two X-files that allowed him to use his knowledge of the aliens and their conspiracy. (TXF: "Three Words", "Vienen")

A case Mulder worked on between these two investigations involved the possibility that the unfortunate conclusion to a search for Doggett's son, conducted years ago, was connected to several recent murders. The case was brought to Mulder by Special Agent Monica Reyes, who had witnessed the discovery of both his deceased body and that of Doggett's son. (TXF: "Empedocles")

Mulder was soon dismissed from the FBI, however, and passed responsibility of the X-files office to Agent Doggett. (TXF: "Vienen") Shortly thereafter, Mulder unofficially aided a search for Doggett and Leyla Harrison, an agent Doggett was temporarily partnered with. Mulder alone succeeded in finding the agents and was indirectly responsible for the killing of a shape-changing creature that had imprisoned them. (TXF: "Alone")

Near the end of this period, Mulder notified Doggett of a news report that related to Scully's pregnancy, events that had transpired during Mulder's absence, a group that had been attempting to create alien babies and the destructive alien super-soldier Billy Miles. Mulder was instrumental in helping Scully flee from Billy Miles and the threat of other alien super-soldiers. (TXF: "Essence") After he came to the realization that the super-soldiers had infiltrated the FBI and knew where Scully was, he managed to bring both her and her newborn baby son, William, to a hospital. (TXF: "Existence")

Further Disappearances and Trial

Mulder was persuaded to go into hiding after first Kersh and then Scully expressed concerns that he would be killed by the super-soldiers if he stayed. (TXF: "Nothing Important Happened Today II") The details of Mulder's return, including the place and mode of transport, were arranged before he left. (TXF: "Trust No 1") Two days after he brought Scully and baby William home, Mulder took a shower in Scully's apartment before leaving in secret; neither Doggett, Scully, AD Skinner nor Monica Reyes, who had recently been assigned to the X-files, was informed of his destination and no record of his journey was logged with movers, airlines or car rental agencies. Mulder's apartment was completely emptied on or shortly before the same morning he left. (TXF: "Nothing Important Happened Today")

Mulder traveled to New Mexico, where he continued his search for "the truth" and hid in the desert with Gibson Praise. (TXF: "The Truth") He still had access to e-mail but resisted using it until January 7, 2002, when he sent a personal e-mail in which he remarked, "Some unexpected dimensions of my new life are eating away at any resolve I have left." He also admitted that he was lonely, wanted to come home to Scully and baby William, and was uncertain of his ability to continue living the way in which he was. This mode of communication was being monitored by at least one super-soldier, however.

Soon after, Mulder boarded a train that was scheduled to arrive at a station where he was due to meet Scully, Doggett and Reyes but, due to an incident in which two men - one of whom was the super-soldier who had been monitoring Mulder's e-mails - were shot and the super-soldier fell on the tracks, the train passed the station without stopping. It was believed that Mulder jumped off the train shortly after it passed the station. (TXF: "Trust No 1")

Mulder on trial.

Later that year, Mulder crept into the Mount Weather Complex in Bluemont, Virginia where he managed to access a classified file that contained information regarding colonization, including the date set for that event - December 22, 2012. After he electrocuted super-soldier Knowle Rohrer in retaliation for Rohrer assaulting him, Mulder was captured, imprisoned and subjected to an unsuccessful brainwashing attempt in his cell. He was reunited with Scully, Skinner, Doggett and Reyes while imprisoned and learned that baby William had been given up for adoption.

As he was falsely accused of having killed Knowle Rohrer, Mulder was placed on trial. The proceeding was held in a courtroom under the jurisdiction of the US Marine Corps, with Skinner acting as Mulder's defense, Special Agent Kallenbrunner as the prosecutor and judges who were also members of the FBI, including Kersh. Many of Mulder's associates each provided a testimony at the trial but Mulder refused to present a testimony himself. After irrefutable proof that Knowle Rohrer had not been killed was presented at the trial, the evidence was dismissed and Mulder was pronounced as guilty, sentenced to death by lethal injection. Skinner, Doggett, Reyes and even Kersh helped Mulder escape with Scully and he fled back to New Mexico with his former FBI partner. (TXF: "The Truth")

Post-Trial Activities

For years after his trial, Mulder remained on the run with Scully. Sometime between the trial in 2002 and 2008, he and Scully purchased a home somewhere in Virginia. Whereas Scully got a job at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital as a children's doctor, Mulder remained in their home, isolated, because he was wanted by the FBI. He spent his days cutting out newspaper articles about paranormal activity and tacking them onto the walls of an office he set up at home. In 2008, Scully was contacted by the FBI, who told her they would drop the charges against Mulder if he came to help them on a case. Mulder was at first reluctant but later agreed. Much to Scully's concern, Mulder became deeply obsessed with solving the case, which involved a series of missing women. Mulder told Scully that such obsessiveness was key to his personality and that he missed his old life. Ultimately, Mulder solved the case and he told Scully they would try to escape the darkness that had surrounded them for so long. Shortly after this, Mulder went on a cruise to the Bahamas with Scully. (The X-Files: I Want to Believe)

Possible Late Life

For much of his life, Mulder considered taking a cruise somewhere once he got older. (TXF: "Død Kalm") He once commented that his work with the FBI demanded that he live in a big city but that, if he ever had to settle down and build a home, he would choose to live in a small town. (TXF: "Home")

For most of his adult life, however, Mulder was almost unable to consider a future without the X-files. In 1998, when asked if he had any future plans, Mulder implied that he planned to continue investigating the files. He was unsure of what he was seeking, but believed that whatever he ultimately hoped to find was in the X-files and suspected that he might know what he was searching for when he finally found it. (TXF: "The End")

However, once, a man who Mulder believed was actually a ghost commented that obsessive compulsiveness, workaholism and antisocial behaviour - which the man believed Mulder was prone to - were "fertile fields for the descent into total wacko breakdown." (TXF: "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas")

Scully once revealed that she believed Mulder would become insanely obsessed with hoping to catch a glimpse of the truth about paranormal phenomena, listening only to himself on a quest that no-one else could understand. She also suspected that Mulder's obsessive search for the truth would inevitably result in his death and that those who he took with him would also ultimately die. (TXF: "Quagmire")

Relationships

Family

Father

In early 1961, the Cigarette Smoking Man had an affair with Teena Mulder, and would father Fox. (TXF: "The Truth") Although the CSM kept a close eye on Mulder over the years, Fox was raised to believe his father was William Mulder. His mother never told him his true parentage and would lie when confronted about the truth. (TXF: "Demons")

For Fox Mulder's relationship with the Cigarette Smoking Man, see his section below.

During deep hypnotic regression conducted by Doctor Heitz Werber in 1989, Mulder was apparently able to access repressed memories of his sister's abduction. He supposedly recalled a bright light outside and a presence in the room. However, he apparently remembered that he had been paralyzed and unable to respond to his sister's repeated calls for help. (TXF: "Pilot", "Conduit", "Closure")

Mulder told Scully that he had undergone hypnosis in "Pilot". She later listened to recordings of his regression in "Conduit" and watched a video of the process in "Closure".

Mulder discovered the X-files in late 1990. (TXF: "Kill Switch") His investigations into the paranormal phenomenon reported in the files were fueled by his belief that his sister had been abducted by aliens. (TXF: "Gethsemane")

In 1993, Agent Scully suspected that the supposed abduction of Mulder's sister had influenced him to request an assignment involving the abduction of a female teenager who had a young brother. After the teenager was located and the agents' investigation ended, Scully listened to an audio tape of one of Mulder's hypnosis sessions while he sat alone in a church and cried over a picture of his sister. (TXF: "Conduit")

In 2000, Special Agent Lewis Schoniger believed that Mulder's memories were actually a typical alien abduction fantasy compensating for the sense of guilt or fear that was preventing him from remembering the truth. The FBI expert explained that Mulder's delusion played into his unconscious hope that his sister was still alive, providing him with a reason to pursue her.

With the help of police psychic Harold Piller, Mulder eventually discovered his sister's fate in 2000. After her abduction, Samantha had lived on April Air Force Base in California, apparently with Jeffrey Spender and his father,C.G.B. Spender. According to a diary Mulder found on April Base, doctors had conducted brutal experiments on her in 1979, when she was fourteen years old. Samantha could vaguely recall an older brother but seemed to think that the doctors performing tests on her had stolen her memories. Mulder noted that in her final entry, she expressed an intense desire to run away.

He found a sergeant's blotter that confirmed that Samantha had escaped from the hospital where she had been held hostage and had been picked up by police as a runaway. She had then been taken to Dominic Savio Memorial Hospital, where she had seemed to be exhibiting signs of paranoia and had given no name to the police or nurses, explaining why Mulder had found it so hard to learn what had happened to her. The hospital medical staff had found scars on her knees, wrists and chest that they had considered to be the result of self-inflicted abuse. Samantha had allowed no-one except an ER nurse named Arbutus Ray to touch her. As Samantha slept, Nurse Ray had seen a brief vision of Samantha dead in her bed, but the vision quickly passed and Samantha was unharmed. Late that night, a group of men arrived to take Samantha, but Nurse Ray found that she had disappeared from a locked hospital room, never to be seen again.

Fox Mulder, finally reunited with his sister.

An extract from the Mulder family cemetery marker, showing the dates of Samantha's birth and death.

When Mulder visited Ray's home with Scully and Harold Piller in 2000, he apparently met with an apparition of his sister and accepted Piller's theory that Samantha was with "walk-ins", old souls lurking in starlight who protect other souls from violent fates that are not meant to be. (TXF: "Closure")

In 2002, Jeffrey Spender confirmed that Mulder had indeed witnessed his sister being abducted by aliens. However, she had been returned and was sent to California where she and Spender had been raised together. She was taken many more times and suffered horrible tests, eventually dying in 1987. (TXF: "The Truth")

Half-Brother

It has been suggested that Jeffrey Spender is Mulder's half brother (TXF: "William"), sharing as a biological father Cigarette Smoking Man. This is seen when CSM writes a letter, signed "Your Loving Father", and places it in a red envelope. The red envelope is later seen delivered to Jeffrey Spender, and then seen again with CSM labeled "Return to Sender".

Jeffrey Spender and Young CSM are also played by the same actor: Chris Owens.

Wife

see below under Romantic Interests

There is some indirect evidence that Mulder may once have been married, but this is never explicitly proven.

Children

It has been suggested that Mulder is the biological father of Scully's child, William, whom she named in honor of Mulder's father (TXF: "Existence"). Whatever the case, Mulder considers William to be his son (TXF: "The Truth").

When Frank Spotnitz was asked about William's origin at New York Comic-Con 2008, the executive producer confirmed that William's father was indeed Mulder.

Grandfather

In 2000, Mulder commented that Kuru, a disease that New Guinea tribesmen get from eating the brains of their relatives, seemed even more disgusting than when his "grandpa" used to slurp up soup. (TXF: "Theef")

Uncle

This may or may not be true. In "Humbug", after Scully performs an old sleight of hand her uncle - an amateur magician - once taught her, Mulder performs a similar sleight of hand for her and tells her, "Everybody's uncle is an amateur magician". However, Mulder may have been joking at the time.

Romantic Interests

Phoebe Green

Diana Fowley

Wife

Mulder was seen without a wedding ring in 1989 ("Unusual Suspects") and 1992 ("Pilot") suggesting his "marriage" occurred between those two dates. Many fans have speculated that his wife might have been Diana Fowley, as they had a relationship around this time. His marriage was not mentioned in any other episodes.

Dana Scully

Mulder's FBI partner on the X-files unit for several years. The two developed a romantic relationship, and have a child together, William. In 2002, after receiving the death penalty in a criminal trial, Mulder flees, and Dana Scully accompanies him. (TXF: "The Truth") In 2008 it is shown them living together as well as leaving in a boat going to a tropical island.

Jerry Lamana

William Patterson

Scott Blevins

Dana Scully

On March 6, 1992, Special Agent Dana Scully was assigned to work with Mulder on the X-files and the two agents met later that day. Mulder was already aware that Scully was a medical doctor who taught at the FBI Academy and had done her undergraduate degree in Physics. He had read - and liked - her senior thesis, "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation". Though Mulder believed that Scully had been sent to spy on him, she ensured him that she was not part of any agenda. (TXF: "Pilot") However, Scully was unaware that she had indeed been sent to spy on Mulder because the FBI distrusted his methods. (TXF: "The Truth")

Nevertheless, Scully remained Agent Mulder's partner for many years. As they investigated the X-files together, Scully gradually came to believe in his theories; in the existence of extraterrestrial life and in a conspiracy inside the government to keep their existence a secret. (TXF: "The Truth")

Scully once told her best friend, Ellen, that Mulder was "cute". In early 1993, Ellen asked Scully if she would ever consider dating Mulder. Scully replied that he was "a jerk", but quickly denied that he was and stated instead that he was obsessed with his work. (TXF: "The Jersey Devil")

In early 1994, Mulder was concerned for Scully after the death of her father. He urged her not to believe criminal Luther Lee Boggs' claim of psychic ability, convinced that Boggs was trying to mislead her. (TXF: "Beyond the Sea")

The first known example of Mulder using Scully's first name to talk with her is in "Beyond the Sea", although he could have previously done so off-screen.

After the close of the X-files in 1994, Mulder and Scully would occasionally meet. Mulder's sign that he wanted to speak to Scully was using his pseudonym, George Hale. (TXF: "Sleepless") Scully's sign to Mulder that she wanted to speak to him was turning over a picture on his desk of his sister, Samantha. (TXF: "Little Green Men")

In 1994, Mulder left Washington, D.C. without informing Scully. She searched for him, learning his computer password ("TRUST NO1") along the way, and eventually found him in Puerto Rico. (TXF: "Little Green Men")

When Scully was abducted in 1994, Mulder desperately searched for her. (TXF: "Ascension") Although he returned to investigating the X-files, Mulder's hope that his former FBI partner would be returned continued to be unrelenting. Shortly after she was discovered alive but in deteriorating health, her mother, Margaret Scully, commented that Mulder's relationship with Scully had been built on trust. (TXF: "One Breath") Scully recovered and returned to working with Mulder, although she was later diagnosed with cancer. (TXF: "Firewalker", "Memento Mori") Mulder investigated her cancer and other complications related to her abduction, such as the discovery of her daughter, Emily Sim. (TXF: "Memento Mori", "Emily")

By early 1995, Mulder had given Scully a key to his apartment. (TXF: "End Game")

In 1996, Mulder's observation that she had lost some weight pleased Scully. (TXF: "Quagmire") In the same year, the two agents held hands after helping to catch killer Robert Patrick Modell. (TXF: "Pusher") Also in 1996, Scully was exposed to an altered television signal that made her paranoid and caused her to believe that Mulder was part of the Syndicate working against them. She almost shot Mulder but he and Scully's mother managed to persuade her not to. (TXF: "Wetwired")

Mulder and Scully's relationship continued to progress. When Scully was diagnosed with cancer, Mulder began an obsessive quest to cure her. He eventually found a cure with the help of CSM (TXF: "Memento Mori, Redux)

When Mulder got caught in the "Bermuda Triangle" he kissed a woman who appeared to be Scully since he feared he may never see the real Scully ever again. When he returned to real time he told the real Scully he loved her. (TXF: "Triangle)

Later that year Mulder switched bodies with Morris Fletcher Mulder would talk about Scully in his sleep. When Scully realized that Mulder had switched bodies with Morris, she said "I'd kiss you if you weren't so damn ugly."

In late 1998 or early 1999 Mulder and Scully went undercover as a married couple. Mulder thought Scully just wanted to play house.(TXF: "Arcadia)

Later that year Mulder became ill when coming in contact with a rubbing from a space craft. Subsequently he was kidnapped by CSM and his colleagues and tested on. Scully ultimetly rescued him. Mulder told her that he had experienced a vivid dream, like an alternate reality in which one thing remained the same: "You were my friend." (TXF: "Biogenesis, The Sixth Extinction, The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati")

On New Years 2000 Mulder kissed Scully. (TXF: "Millennium"). It was implied that the two slept together later that year. (TXF: "all things")

In late 2000 Mulder and Scully went back to Oregon, the place of their first case. Mulder told Scully he wanted her to stop following him on his quest because of all she lost, like her ability to have children. After Mulder's abduction Scully learned she was pregnant. (TXF: "Requiem)

Scully searched furiously for Mulder. It was revealed through flashbacks that Scully had tried in-vitro as a way to have a child, and asked Mulder to be the father. (TXF: "Per Manum) After Mulder's return he felt out of place due to Scully's pregnancy and her new partner, "Agent John Doggett" However the two still remained close. He gave her a doll he found at his mothers house (TXF: "Empedocles) and assisted her at Lamaze classes ("Alone)After the birth of their son, "William Scully III Mulder kissed Scully, telling her they were both afraid of "the truth we both know." ("Existence)

Mulder went into hiding to protect Scully and William. He emailed her at least once, telling her he wanted to come home to her and their son ("Trust No 1). By 2002 he and Scully were very much a couple ("The Truth) By 2008 they shared an old farm house and Scully revealed to Mulder that his stubbornness is one of the reasons she fell in love with him. "The X-Files: I Want to Believe)

Walter Skinner

Darius Michaud

Jeffrey Spender

Alvin Kersh

John Doggett

In the 8th season, Special Agent John Doggett is assigned to replace Mulder on the X-files with Scully. When Mulder first meets Agent Doggett in the Episode Three Words, he reacts negatively and shoves Agent Doggett back down in his seat in Assistant Director Skinner's office, accusing him of trying to, "...Bury the Truth."

Informants

Mulder has had several informants over time. The Lone Gunmen and an unknown person called "Danny" have been two of Mulder's main sources of information. When he first began working on the X-files, Deep Throat began providing Mulder with information. When Deep Throat was killed, X took his place. Marita Covarrubias, a Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, replaced X after his death.

"The Lone Gunmen"

Danny

Senator Richard Matheson

During their first investigation together, Mulder told Scully that the only reason he had been permitted to continue working on the X-files was because he had made connections in Congress. (TXF: "Pilot")

One of these "connections" was with Senator Richard Matheson, who, because he had an interest in Earth's first contact with an extraterrestrial life-form, supported Mulder's work on the X-files at great risk to his own reputation. When the X-files were closed down in 1994, Mulder realized that there was nothing the Senator could do to prevent that from happening, due to his reputation being in jeopardy.

Shortly thereafter, Mulder was given the opportunity to reveal his realization to the Senator, after he was taken to Matheson's office. At first, Matheson quizzed Mulder on his knowledge of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto Number 2, the first selection of music on the Voyager spacecraft, but learned that the FBI Agent was not as aware of the composition's importance as he himself was.

Mulder suspected that he had disappointed Matheson, due to the termination of his work on the X-files, and discovered that Matheson feared the threat of audio surveillance being conducted on his own office. By lowering his voice while loudly playing a recording of Bach, the Senator instructed Mulder to journey to Puerto Rico's Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory in order to determine whether the radio telescope had received any transmissions from an extraterrestrial intelligence.

Matheson provided Mulder with a printed transmission from the radio telescope and ensured Mulder that he would attempt to delay the Blue Beret UFO Retrieval Team while the FBI Agent was investigating the transmission, even though he revealed to Mulder that he would only be able to postpone the team for about twenty-four hours. The Senator's information seemed to be accurate, as Mulder was chased away from the radio telescope by a deployment of armed soldiers the following day. (TXF: "Little Green Men")

"Deep Throat"

Deep Throat was an enigmatic ally of Mulder who provided answers from time to time about alien activity or other strange activity such as the dangerous AI in "Ghost in the Machine" or the Lichfield experiments in "Eve."? Deep Throat eventually was murdered when he exchanged Mulder's life for the secrets Mulder and Scully had obtained ("The Erlenmeyer Flask").

"X"

After the X-files were closed in 1994, Mulder answered a phone call from a man who told him that he had "a friend at the FBI". When Mulder asked the anonymous caller to identify themselves, the man ended the call.

Earlier, Mulder had told Agent Scully that he was considering leaving the FBI. He was convinced that Scully had since spoken to someone in an attempt to launch a campaign to help him and that that person had been the anonymous caller. However, when Mulder approached Scully with this belief, she assured him that she hadn't spoken to anyone about the issue.

Scully later notified Mulder that someone had shoved a magazine under her door that had helped her identify a victim. The same person who had called Mulder before had supplied Scully with the magazine, a fact that Scully realized and reported to Mulder.

Shortly thereafter, Mulder struggled to catch a human who he believed was a giant flukeworm and who looked like such a creature due to exposure to high levels of radiation. Mulder's mysterious contact phoned him again and told him that the success of his current assignment was imperative because reinstatement of the X-files had to be undeniable. (TXF: "The Host")

On their first meeting, Covarrubias apologised to Mulder that an investigation into a Canadian farmland had not uncovered the answers he had hoped for. She was also curious as to why the matter was so important to him, as he had not told her that he had found a colony of clones that looked like his sister there. When Mulder awkwardly replied that he had "recently" suffered some very personal losses, Marita stated, "not everything dies". Mulder, who had recently been told that "everything dies" by an alien bounty hunter, started to wonder about her allegiances. (TXF: "Herrenvolk")

In August 1996, Mulder came to Marita Covarrubias and told her about a case he was working on. She seemed reluctant to speak with Mulder, claiming to have no knowledge of the case and declaring that she was unable to help him. Mulder suspected that she knew more about the case than she claimed to know but was unwilling to aid him. (TXF: "Teliko")

The Syndicate were secretly paying Covarrubias for the use of her diplomatic power in furthering their goal to develop an alien virus vaccine before the Russians could, an arrangement that Mulder had no knowledge of. Marita Covarrubias eventually came to hate the Syndicate and consequently chose to co-operate with Mulder as he worked on the X-files. (TXF: "The Truth") She also helped Mulder because she could and because she believed in him and in his search for the truth. (TXF: "Tunguska")

On November 25, 1996, Mulder went to Marita's apartment at 12:36 pm. She slightly opened her door to him but opted to use a security chain that barred the entrance. When she asked why he had come to her home, Mulder made it clear that he needed her help. He apologized for bothering her but claimed that it was a matter of extreme urgency. Mulder explained that two men had died in relation to a diplomatic pouch which had left Russia and arrived in the United States and wanted to know the reason they had died. Marita finally unchained her door and allowed Mulder into her apartment.

Nearly four hours later, Mulder was sleeping on a chair in her living room while Marita, dressed in her nightgown in another room, made a phone call. After ending the call, she walked into her living room and knelt down beside Mulder. She relayed news to him that the diplomatic pouch had traveled an apex route to the Russian city of Norilsk, in the province of Krasnoyarsk. Mulder started to look for his cell phone to book himself a flight to Krasnoyarsk. When Marita offered to help him, Mulder initially thought she intended to help find his phone. She clarified that she could provide him with cover details, such as a visa and a diplomatic passport. Three minutes later, Mulder had left her apartment with the cover details she gave him. (TXF: "Tunguska")

When Marita was next contacted by Mulder, he told her he needed information on American prisoners of war. They met in the Lincoln Memorial, where Mulder explained that a POW named Nathaniel Teager may have returned from Vietnam and could be killing the men who had left him there. Although Mulder already knew the names of two of those men, Marita informed him that there was a third man but would not reveal his name. (TXF: "Unrequited")

By April 27, 1997, Mulder had a record of Marita's contact details that he kept in his office at FBI Headquarters. Marita later called the Cigarette-Smoking Man, who instructed her to tell Mulder what he wanted to hear. (TXF: "Zero Sum")

In early 1998, Marita discovered that Mulder had been at Skyland Mountain, where several burned bodies had recently been found.

After betraying the Syndicate, Covarrubias called Mulder from a pay phone. She checked that they were speaking on a secure line before revealing that she had been in the former Soviet Union, where an incident similar to the one on Skyland Mountain had occurred. Covarrubias also informed Mulder that she was with someone, a Russian boy infected with the alien virus, who knew that both incidents were connected. She told Mulder where she was, instructed him to go to the same phone booth and to wait for her to call with more directions. Suddenly, however, Marita dropped the phone in shock, abruptly ending her conversation with Mulder. (TXF: "Patient X")

When Mulder next saw Covarrubias, she was running through a deserted corridor at Fort Marlene Decontamination Center in early 1999. Marita momentarily stopped to look at him before quickly continuing on her way. Mulder ran through the corridor in pursuit of Covarrubias and eventually found her hiding in a laboratory. She looked poorly and warned Mulder that the Syndicate would kill her if they were found together.

Marita revealed that the Syndicate were cooperating with a race of aliens that planned to colonize Earth, but were secretly attempting to create a biological weapon to use against the aliens. She claimed that the Syndicate had conducted terrible tests on her as part of their attempt and explained that Cassandra Spender was part of a long-standing program in cooperation with the aliens to create an alien/human hybrid. Mulder suspected that Cassandra Spender was the result of the hybrid program and that she was the first successful alien/human hybrid. Marita warned that if Mulder's suspicion was accurate and the aliens discovered that a hybrid existed, they would begin relentlessly colonizing the planet. (TXF: "One Son")

Mulder with Marita and Alex Krycek.

In 2000, Marita went with Alex Krycek to visit Mulder in his office. They told him that the Cigarette-Smoking Man was dying and explained that his last wish was for Krycek and Covarrubias to find a downed alien craft that Mulder had been looking for and revive the conspiracy.

Mulder and Marita then visited the Lone Gunmen with Scully, Krycek and Skinner. As the Gunmen discussed detection methods to find the UFO, Mulder and the others learned from Marita that the ship was rebuilding itself. (TXF: "Requiem")

In May 2002, Marita defended Mulder at his trial. Although she was initially chosen as his central witness, Marita could not be found and other witnesses were therefore called. In his cell, Mulder was visited by a vision of X, who handed him a note of Marita's address.

After she was eventually found, Marita admitted at Mulder's trial that her hatred of the Syndicate had motivated her to help him. Mulder and other men present at his trial learned that Marita had resisted testifying before the tribunal because the conspiracy continued, only conducted by others. Skinner urged her to prove that the man Mulder had apparently killed, an alien replacement referred to as a super-soldier, was one of the new conspirators. Mulder realized that the conspirators would kill Marita if she admitted that they existed. Mulder consequently insisted that Skinner dismiss Covarrubias. Although Skinner believed that Marita was Mulder's "last best witness", he eventually complied with his client's wishes. Marita looked to Mulder for the first time at the trial and slightly nodded her head in thanks. Mulder returned the gesture before Covarrubias left the room. (TXF: "The Truth")

Enemies

"Cigarette Smoking Man"

After visiting the Mulder family in the 1960s, the CSM would fondly remember young Fox and Samantha playing. (TXF: "Talitha Cumi")

In October 1973, the CSM visited the Mulder household and may have had a role in choosing Samantha to being abducted. Fox remembered this situation in 1997 while suffering several hallucinations. (TXF: "Demons")

In March 1994, Mulder didn't recognize the CSM in Skinner's office when he was reprimanded by Skinner for possibly abusing Eugene Victor Tooms in an X-file case. (TXF: "Tooms")

In July 1994, the CSM wiretapped Mulder's phone in an attempt to send Mulder on probation and out of the FBI. His attempt failed when Mulder told AD Skinner about the wiretapping. (TXF: "Little Green Men")

In August 1994, Mulder was present at two meetings with the CSM involving Agent Scully's disappearance and the death of Duane Barry. He began to suspect that his partner, Alex Krycek, was working with the CSM after discovering cigarette butts in Krycek's car. (TXF: "Ascension")

In November 1994, shortly after Scully's return, Mulder discovered where the CSM lived. Mulder appeared at the CSM's apartment on 900 W. Georgia Street and attempted to threaten him for information. Mulder failed and, in his disgust, nearly resigned from the FBI. (TXF: "One Breath")

In March 1995, Mulder had a conversation with the CSM in Skinner's office in which the CSM informed Mulder that the truth sometimes needs to be hidden from the public in order to protect them. (TXF: "F. Emasculata")

In April 1995, Mulder came into possession of a top secret MJ document which was being searched for by the CSM and Garnet operatives. The CSM desperately searched for Mulder and nearly killed him when lighting an old refrigeration car on fire. (TXF: "Anasazi")

In November 1995, while searching through silos for a missing UFO, Mulder was discovered by the CSM and taken back to Washington when it was discovered that he knew nothing. (TXF: "Apocrypha")

In the summer of 1996, the CSM was threatened once again by Mulder when visiting Mulder's mother in hospital. (TXF: "Talitha Cumi")

In October 1997, the CSM allowed Mulder to gain the cure for Scully's cancer from the Advanced Research Project Facility in the Pentagon. He later visited Mulder and helped explain how the cure worked by inserting a microchip in Scully's neck. The CSM later brought a person who he claimed to be Samantha Mulder to meet with Fox at a restaurant. The next day, the CSM attempted to persuade Mulder to work for him, but Mulder turned the offer down. Mulder later believed that the CSM had died after much of his blood was found in his apartment. (TXF: "Redux II")

In May 1998, Mulder was discovered that the CSM was alive and seemingly working with Jeffrey Spender. (TXF: "The End")

In August 1998, the CSM was quite perplexed when he discovered Mulder in Antarctica, and even more confused when he discovered that Mulder had the Purity vaccine. (The X-Files Movie)

In early 1999, the CSM had a conversation with Mulder when he found him searching Diana Fowley's apartment. The CSM told Mulder of the events involving his father in 1973, and informed Mulder of the location where the colonization was to begin. (TXF: "One Son")

In October 1999, after being exposed to an alien artifact, Mulder became an alien/human hybrid. When the CSM put him to sleep to work on extracting his alien genetic material, Mulder entered a dream state where he had several conversations with the CSM, and ultimately ended up living in the same neighborhood as he was while alien colonization that Mulder had apparently caused took place outside. (TXF: "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati")

In May 2002, the CSM secretly sent Mulder the key to the Mount Weather Complex. With this key, Mulder learned of the date set for the colonization. When Mulder once again set eyes on the CSM, he at first believed him to be a ghost. (TXF: "The Truth")

Alex Krycek

Other Lives

In 1996, Mulder came to believe that his soul had been reincarnated on at least two occasions. The first life he believed he had lived was as a Confederatesoldier named Sullivan Biddle, who fought during the American Civil War in the 1860s. In 1862, Biddle was photographed wearing his Confederate uniform. In November 1863, he and other Confederate soldiers under the command of GeneralCleburne witnessed several of their fellow men die in a battle with the Union army on Missionary Ridge and were forced to retreat. By November 25, 1863, Biddle and the soldiers with him had reached a field near Apison House in Hamilton County, Tennessee. That night, the soldiers built an underground bunker there, in which they stored their rifles. By the morning of the next day, a group of nurses, one of whom was Biddle's lover, Sarah Kavanaugh, had been ordered to rendezvous with the troops and had done so. Shortly before the sun rose on November 26, Biddle and his fellow Confederate soldiers battled with the Union army, hiding Sarah Kavanaugh and the other nurses in the bunker. Rather than retreat to Dalton, General Cleburne chose to continue fighting. As Union General Thomas pushed through the Confederate line, Sullivan Biddle was killed. His lover found him with a bloodied face, near the bunker in the field and, holding his body in her arms, she sadly watched him die. She was still holding him after the Union army had left the field. Sullivan Biddle's sergeant was also killed in the battle.

By 1996, Sullivan Biddle's photograph had been added to the Hamilton County Hall of Records. Under hypnosis, Mulder claimed that Scully's soul had been that of his sergeant and that Melissa Riedal-Ephesian, a woman who he and Scully were investigating, had been Biddle's lover, Sarah Kavanaugh.

According to Mulder's recollections, he had also lived as a Jewish woman who had resided in Poland at the time of the Second World War. Together with her son, the woman had seen ghetto streets, shattered glass and bodies of the dead. She had also seen her father, lying dead in the street, but had perceived that his soul had been waiting to be reunited with the woman and her son in their next lives. The woman had been unable to go to her father because Gestapo officers had been standing next to his body. Mulder also claimed to remember that, at one point in his life as the Jewish woman, her husband had been taken away from her and had been sent to a concentration camp.

According to Mulder, his sister, Samantha, had been the Jewish woman's son, Scully had been her father, Melissa Riedal-Ephesian had been her husband and the Cigarette-Smoking Man had been one of the evil Gestapo officers. (TXF: "The Field Where I Died")

Miscellaneous Information

Name

In the FBI Academy, Mulder earned the nickname "Spooky" due to his unconventional theories. (TXF: "Pilot")

A Native American once told him that his first name, Fox, was an Indian name and that he should be called "Running Fox", or "Sneaky Fox". (TXF: "Shapes")

On several occasions, Mulder has used pseudonyms. He wrote an article in Omni under the name "M.F. Luder", an anagram of "F. Mulder". (TXF: "Fallen Angel") He has also twice used pseudonyms related to the name "George Ellery Hale". (TXF: "Little Green Men", "Sleepless". In the episode "3" Mulder phones around various businesses looking for a murder suspect. He gives his name as Marty Mulder.

Appearances in Media

Several cases Mulder became involved in were reported in the media. These documented cases included the capture of Eugene Victor Tooms, who was caught by the FBI in 1993. Shortly thereafter, a newspaper article was printed with a picture of Tooms and the headline, "Suspect Caught in Serial Killings". (TXF: "The End", "Squeeze")

Although Mulder and Scully were responsible for Tooms' arrest, as seen in the episode "Squeeze", it is unclear whether their involvement in his capture was reported in the newspaper article that can be seen in "The End". It is neither established when the article was printed nor in which newspaper it was featured.

About 1995, a written news story described how Mulder had helped Duane Barry, a man who had escaped from a hospital and had taken several people hostage at a travel agency because he believed he was being called by aliens. According to the report, Mulder was the only person who believed him. (TXF: "Patient X")

It is not established in the episode whether the story was published in a newspaper, magazine or some other form of written medium and when the story was published. Cassandra Spender claims that she read the news story about three years prior to the episode, which is set in 1998. The incident occurred in 1994 and it is likely that the news story reported the incident shortly after it occurred, with Cassandra Spender's imprecise recollection of "about three years" before 1998 actually referring to 1994, although information given in episodes of The X-Files neither firmly supports nor disproves this theory.

A newspaper article from the Washington Chronicle, with a picture of Duane Barry and the headline "FBI defuses Hostage Situation-; Captures 'Alien Abductee'", can be seen in "The End". It is unclear if this is the same report that Cassandra Spender refers to in "Patient X", or a different article. It is also not clear if the newspaper is the same as The Chronicle, available in the Washington, D.C. area, that also appears in "Patient X", and whether the article mentions Mulder's role in the FBI's success at defusing the hostage situation and their capture of Duane Barry.

In 1996, writer José Chung intended to write an adaptation of a case that Mulder had investigated with Scully involving two teenagers who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Mulder refused to speak with Chung, however, and tried to convince the author not to write the planned book. When finally published, the book described the character based on Mulder, "Reynard Muldrake", as a "ticking timebomb of insanity" and stated, "Muldrake's quest into the unknown has so warped his psyche, one shudders to think how he receives pleasures from life". (TXF: "José Chung's From Outer Space")

Reynard is a commonly used name for foxes that feature in works of fiction.

By the end of that year, information about Mulder was readily available on the internet and anyone using the Net could learn practically anything about him. (TXF: "Paper Hearts")

In a televised episode of The Jerry Springer Show, a guest who had given birth to a "werewolf baby" revealed that Mulder had come to her house. Other mentions of Mulder on The Jersey Springer Show revealed that he was an expert on alien abductions.

In 1997, a newspaper article was printed on the front page of the Bloomington Today newspaper, which was distributed in a small town in Indiana. The article announced the arrival of FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully to the town, reporting that the agents were investigating recent bizarre incidents in the area in connection with the Great Mutato, and had the headline, "FBI HUNTS HOMETOWN MONSTER!; Agent Admits Stories: 'BELIEVED TO BE TRUE'". Two later issues of the same newspaper had the headlines, "FBI AGENTS WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN" and "FBI AGENTS SAY MONSTER A 'HOAX'; SHAMELESS PLOY FOR PUBLICITY". (TXF: "The Post-Modern Prometheus")

These publications may have been only fictional, as almost the entirety of the episode "The Post-Modern Prometheus" could be nothing more than an account of a story from a comic book rather than events set in The X-Files Universe. The episode starts with a shot of a comic book opening and ends with the book closing. Like the interior pages of the comic book but unlike all other episodes of The X-Files, the rest of the episode is entirely filmed in black-and-white. At the end of the episode, live action footage of Mulder and Scully dancing slows to a single frame that becomes a comic book drawing of the agents before a hand closes the last page of the comic book, both of which are in colour. Even if the events of "The Post-Modern Prometheus" are fictional, it is unclear whether any of the events are based on "reality" as it pertains to The X-Files Universe. If so, it is unclear which events are and to what degree.

In 1998, an issue of The Chronicle, a newspaper distributed in Washington, D.C., featured a special report on the Visiting Lecturers' Forum in the Massachusetts Institute. The front page of the newspaper quoted "panelist Fox Mulder" as saying, "ALL THIS CONJECTURE ABOUT LITTLE GREEN MEN -FALSE, DANGEROUS, DELUSIONAL." Mulder was also referred to in the article. (TXF: "Patient X")

As Mulder and Scully continued to investigate the X-files, their adventures were serialised in film and television. They were usually played by actors, although their voices were used for at least one such project. (TXF: "Hollywood AD", MM: "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me", MM: "Human Essence") The agents also participated in a real investigation that was filmed and later broadcast. (TXF: "X-COPS")

Firearms

While investigating the X-files, Mulder used his gun sixteen times. (citation required) He himself was shot four times. (TXF: "Beyond the Sea", "Anasazi", "The Goldberg Variation"; The X-Files Movie) Mulder also has a spare pistol in an ankle holster, because he "got tired of losing his gun". (TXF: Nisei) He was also shot a fifth time, the bullet penetrating the upper-left side of his chest. Though this gunshot wound seemingly never happened because of a recurring day in which there was a failed bank heist, the accident still occurred. (TXF: Monday)

Personal Interests

As a keen baseball fan, Mulder is able to read scores and statistics from old newspapers in such a way that he is able to capture the excitement of the actual game being depicted. (TXF: "The Unnatural")

Questionable Information

Memories of Sister's Disappearance

At 8:53pm, news about the Watergate hearings was on television while the children played a game of Stratego. Their parents, who were visiting the Galbrands next door, had allowed Samantha to watch a Western movie on another channel. However, Fox told his sister to leave the television as it was, as The Magician would be on after the news at nine o'clock. He reminded Samantha that their parents had left him in charge, but she changed the channel nevertheless. Irritated by his sister, Fox told Samantha to "get out of [his] life". Samantha screamed in frustration, but Fox insisted on watching The Magician.

When the lights suddenly went out and the television lost power, Fox was annoyed that a fuse had apparently blown. Objects in the room, including the Stratego pieces, pictures on a fireplace mantel and a painting of Fox with a black dog, started to shake. The plug that energized the television exploded in sparks. Both children looked towards a window, where strange red and blue lights flashed through a set of blinds. Fox approached the window and looked through. He gazed up at a trembling chandelier above him as a weird glow started to emanate through a door nearby. The doorknob slowly turned and the door creaked open, revealing a brilliant white light beyond. Fox’s eyes opened widely as he recognized a strange-looking silhouette that appeared to be slightly nonhuman. When Samantha screamed, Fox quickly turned to see her suspended in the air. He called her name in horror as she began to float towards the window, surrounded by a shaft of light.

Although Fox managed to retrieve a gun from a case hidden above a high cabinet, Samantha's body continued to move towards and then through the open window. The bright light from the door eventually engulfed him as he was left alone and in shock. (TXF: "Little Green Men")

This sequence of events may or may not have happened as an adult Fox Mulder is seen waking from a nightmare directly after these events, as if the events had been a part of his dream. The events also contradict Mulder's supposed recollection of the incident that Scully listens to in "Conduit". Like the "nightmare sequence", Mulder's memories also may or may not be historically accurate. Either one, if not both, could simply be the result of Mulder's half-remembered recollections of the incident. The events seen in "Little Green Men" are reconstructed in "Paper Hearts" but it is serial killer John Lee Roche who Mulder sees open the door, not the figure of an alien. Although Roche claimed to have killed Samantha in 1995, it was later proven that Roche was lying. If Mulder thought he saw Roche in 1973 but didn't, is it possible that he may also have thought he saw aliens but didn't?

On the other hand, Mulder's theory that his sister was abducted by aliens doesn't contradict any of the discoveries he makes about her ultimate fate in "Closure" or any information from the subsequent episodes. As hinted to by the episode's title, the production personnel saw "Closure" as a way to finally admit to Samantha's actual destiny. In "The Truth", Jeffrey Spender claims, in front of a court of law, "Mulder witnessed his sister being abducted by aliens". The other information Spender provides at the trial supports Mulder's discoveries in "Closure". Also, the events seen in the "nightmare sequence" begin with a legend that reads "November 27, 1973; Chilmark, Mass.; 8:53 P.M.". If the events were only a nightmare, it's likely that the legend would not be there as it would be obviously incorrect.

To further complicate matters, video footage of Mulder's hypnotic regression was seen in "Closure", but his memories matched the events seen in "Little Green Men".

Letters from Mr. Haskall

A man named Duffy Haskell, whose "wife" was an alien abductee, wrote several letters to Mulder describing his "wife"'s multiple abduction experiences and her supposed recollections that aliens had done tests on her. Mulder added the letters to the X-files but he was also sent a series of very threatening letters from Duffy Haskell, as the President of the OhioMutual UFO Network, which Mulder passed on to Assistant Director Skinner. (TXF: "Per Manum")

It is confirmed in the episode that information in the X-files reveals that a Mr. Haskell wrote several letters to Mulder describing his "wife"'s abduction experiences, but it is unclear when these letters were sent. Duffy Haskell claims to have sent the letters "about eight years" prior to the episode's setting of early 2001, before Scully was assigned to work on the X-files with Mulder. This would give a rough date as late 1991 or early 1992. However, Duffy Haskell is later revealed to be untrustworthy and may have lied that he had ever been married to a woman named Kath and/or that he had sent the letters about eight years earlier. In fact, the letters may have been placed in the X-files at almost any point between 1990, when Mulder discovered the files, and early 2001.

The recollections of Duffy Haskell's "wife" were extremely similar to Scully's experiences while working on the X-files - of tests conducted during an abduction that caused a bout with cancer before a remission. It is somewhat surprising that Mulder never mentioned the letters onscreen and that Scully is unaware of them in the episode, unless Duffy Haskell did not send news of his "wife"'s bout with cancer and subsequent remission to Mulder.

It is unclear when Mulder received the threatening letters or when he gave them to AD Skinner. They are a possible reason why Mulder never learned that Duffy Haskell's wife had suffered from cancer and had then been cured.

Background Information

Mulder is the original last name of Chris Carter's mother. Mulder's first name, Fox, was the name of Carter's childhood friend.

The surname 'Mulder' has three origins: 1. Dutch: occupational name from mulder ‘miller’. 2. German: occupational name for a maker of wooden bowls, from Middle High German mulde ‘bowl’, ‘trough’, ‘tub’ + the agent suffix -er. 3. variant of Müller (see Mueller).

In the original script of the pilot episode, Mulder is described as having "longish hair, boyish good looks" and "doesn't look FBI.... If Mulder is difficult, he is not cruel. More mischievous; and intense. The FBI's bad boy in the basement."

Unlike Mulder, Duchovny neither wears ties nor has a habit of eating dried sunflower seeds and is skeptical of UFOs and the paranormal.

Mulder's habit of eating dried sunflower seeds was first established by Chris Carter, as he is prone to that habit himself.

An animated version of Mulder appears, along with Scully, in "The Springfield Files", an episode of the hit television series, The Simpsons. In the episode, Mulder and his FBI partner investigate supposed alien sightings, reported by Homer Simpson.

In Deep Space 9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations (5x06), While DS9 is under investigation by the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations an agent is called 'Dulmer' which happens to be an anagram of 'Mulder', he is partnered with Agent 'Lucsly' (anagram of 'Scully')